


tossing, turning in your sleep

by green_tea_mochi



Category: Shingeki no Kyojin | Attack on Titan
Genre: Ambiguous/Open Ending, Angst, Armin just needs a hug, Bittersweet, Canon Compliant, Character Study, Emotional Hurt/Comfort, Eren is doing his best, Implied/Referenced Character Death, Implied/Referenced Self-Harm, Insomnia, Minor Armin Arlert/Eren Yeager, Missing Scene, Multi, Past Marco Bott/Jean Kirstein, Post-Traumatic Stress Disorder - PTSD, Pre-Season/Series 03, Squad Mom Levi, Suicidal Thoughts, Time Skips, but blink and you miss it
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-11-13
Updated: 2020-11-13
Packaged: 2021-03-09 05:41:19
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,566
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/27419704
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/green_tea_mochi/pseuds/green_tea_mochi
Summary: Armin fills the long, empty nights of the barrack with the sound of the ocean.
Relationships: Armin Arlert & Eren Yeager, Armin Arlert & Erwin Smith, Armin Arlert & Krista Lenz | Historia Reiss, Armin Arlert & Levi
Comments: 2
Kudos: 51





	tossing, turning in your sleep

**Author's Note:**

> Also hesitantly titled: a lonely boy braids flower crowns, dreams of something just out-of-reach, and everything in between those moments.

Armin fills the long, empty nights of the barrack with the sound of the ocean. He weaves the waves in between the cracks of the wood beam bunk several inches above him, the whistle of Jean’s snoring, the pacing of footsteps down the stone hallways early in the morning. He remembers wrinkled pages that smelled like mildew and late afternoons, remembers tracing the crude charcoal drawings with stubby fingers. It’s been years, but somehow the books stay. He can’t recall the exact shine of his Grandpa’s eyes or the feel of his hat, but he has the books, at least. Most nights it’s not enough. In the hundreds of pages he must have poured through, the endless passages of the sea and the sky and everything in between, there was silence. He imagines the feel of sand beneath his feet and the ocean breeze on his skin, but as the waves crash against his shins they stay quiet. 

The ache in his chest persists. There was sand in the lot behind his house in Shiganshina, and the rolling hills outside the Walls were brushed with a cool wind no matter the season. But the canal of the river was too small for waves, and no matter how hard he scrunched his eyes shut, the sound of the city swallowed him. It stayed a canal, with sluggish gray water and packed concrete sides. On the Last day (it was always the Last day in Armin’s head, though the Last of what he wasn’t quite sure. Childhood perhaps, though he can’t imagine such a thing lasting so long to begin with.), waves lapped at the sides of the barge as they fled down the river, water too mudied with red and soot to pretend at being the sea. 

It’s not a thing to miss, but in the candlelight of early dawn, the old stone of the castle breathing around him, Armin almost does.

He knows he’s soft edges and awkward where the other cadets are straight-backed and sure. He’s gained rigidity from training and living under Captain Levi, with whom everyone is one mistake away from getting kicked around like a sack of potatoes (It’s happened to Armin on more than one occasion.). There’s baby fat on his thighs that won’t budge no matter how much he throws himself into training and a roundness to his cheeks that he wants to scratch off. 

He knows he’s not the only one still awkwardly clinging to childhood despite every effort to throw it off (he’ll never say he misses it), but he imagines he’s the only one who still feels guilt about crushing a ladybug underfoot, about accidentally cracking Eren in the face with the handle of one of his swords while sparring. Eren had waved it off, pressed the back of his hand to the bleeding of his nose while Mikasa made a poor attempt at pretending she wasn’t concerned; flitting around him with a crease between her brows and her mouth pulled in a thin, white line. Armin had excused himself and broke down in the washroom. 

The ache in his chest doesn’t budge. He buries his face in the scratchy material of the standard issue pillow until pinpricks of light burst behind his eyes. He leaves welts down his forearms from where his fingernails dig into his skin; it’s a brief moment of clarity, but perhaps not worth the concerned glance Connie shoots him when he absentmindedly rolls his sleeves up during cleaning duty. He makes sure to wear them down from then on. 

\-----

The nights get colder and Armin wakes from half-remembered dreams where the salt of sea spray stings his face and cool, whistling winds lift his hair. It’s never quite the same. Christa offers him an extra blanket one evening as they both sit up by the window, watching the darkness of the courtyard and pale sliver of moon. She passes it off into his hands and Armin bundles it against his chest, winds himself into the coarse fabric.

He spends more nights than not alone (or at least it feels like it), pacing the hallways when he feels brave enough; watching the shadows slink across the wide, vacant room. Every now and again someone around him will wake from a nightmare. He feigns sleep as he listens to the half-muffled crying smothered in pillowcases and doesn't acknowledge the dark circles beneath their eyes the next morning. It’s a small courtesy, or maybe just a testament to his own unwillingness to snap their already frayed nerves. 

God, they’re all just _kids_. It’s easy to forget, sometimes. 

Listening to Jean’s raspy breathing as he tosses and turns in the sheets, a name half-caught on his lips, it’s harder to ignore then. If he doesn’t look Jean in the eye for a week afterwards, no one says anything. 

Armin watches chairs disappear from the dining hall and thinks of ocean spray and quiet mornings. 

\-----

He bruises easily during training, a sour colour spilling across his skin like a visible mark of his innocence. He wonders if he was born with eggshell thin skin or if he’s somehow softer now than before. Somedays it seems the only explanation. 

\-----

There are white flowers in the courtyard that Armin can’t help but notice as they pass by on their way to early morning lineup. He shouldn’t (he’s not a child, never a child) but he imagines the flower chains his Grandpa taught him how to weave; calloused hands enveloping his own, moving his fingers in delicate loops through the stems and dandelion blooms. The castle is too cold for flowers, so on the one night he sneaks down into the chill, he leaves the delicate white chains crumpled by the courtyard steps.

Eren notices the next morning as they hurry out the door, the careful crown of petals dampened against the grass. He stops to stuff one into his pocket without a word, and storms off towards the dining hall before Mikasa can call after. It’s left on top of Armin’s dresser in the barrack before nightfall. 

\-----

Commander Erwin returns with a sleeve pinned up and an empty space at his side, and Armin says nothing. He drops a stack of paper off in Erwin’s office a few days later, lack of sleep making the world tilt and blur, and pointedly watches the floor as Erwin shuffles through them. He thinks of crowded streets and the tugging of Eren on his sleeve as they stumbled down side-alleys. 

_"They’re back! Just wait, we’re going to fight with him someday!”_

Armin is small and gray compared to the light of the Commander, and wonders how he hasn’t been smothered yet. He’s lost less than an arm and bears it like a death sentence. 

\-----

He stumbles down the stairway, arms laden with folders, and imagines slipping, the weightlessness of falling. It’d be easier, and perhaps it’s selfish, but at least this he has control over. 

At the very least, such a thing would be better than getting ripped apart outside of the Walls, torn to tiny, bloody bits. Maybe it’s just prolonging the inevitable. Whatever the reason, Armin avoids the staircase from then on. He still wants to hear the ocean. 

\-----

Strangely enough, it’s Levi that eventually pulls him aside. Armin can’t say he’s not expecting it, though he is surprised it’s the Captain. They’re off in a side-hallway, the torches casting half of Levi’s face into shadow, the other half starkly illuminated. Deep, gray eyes watch him from where he’s slumped against the wall, and Armin tucks his hands behind his back to hide their shaking. 

There’s a strange sort of silence, quietly regarding the other. Then Levi huffs, pushes forward until he’s staring slightly up at him, face carefully blank. Gray, like cloudied river water, Armin thinks, and soot settles on his shoulders. 

“You know you don’t have to do this,” he makes a sharp gesture at Armin, “without help. You got the rest of them.”

And he thinks of Eren tugging on his sleeve, and Erwin, bright, set in stone with his sleeve pinned high. Levi shifts, comes into focus against the backdrop of the hallway. There’s almost an understanding. Then the Captain turns to leave, and it’s gone. 

\-----

The walls of the barrack breathe around him, and Armin loses himself in the wind of the left-open window. It rustles his hair and leaves chilled marks on his cheeks. He bundles the blankets to his chest and listens to the faint murmurs of Eren in his sleep, awkwardly sprawled across the nearest cot, eyebrows creased in a sharp line. Armin leans his head back against the stone, his eyes fluttering softly shut.

It’s childish and simple, and reminds Armin of his Grandpa’s book and the weathered creases of his palms where they enveloped his own. If he’s had to abandon the sandlot and the canal and the flower chains, he’s grateful he still has the ocean. It is as it’s always been; out of reach, the quiet of the waves circling through his head in a maddening, impossible loop. He has this, he thinks, where Eren has the Captain and his mother; Armin has his Grandpa’s hat and half-remembered dreams of sea spray. 

He settles back against the sheets, tucks his face into the pillow, and fills the quiet of the moment with the faint sound of the ocean. 

  
  


**Author's Note:**

> Armin Arlert is a soft boy who picks flowers in his free time, and nothing can convince me otherwise. Feedback is always appreciated. <3


End file.
